This invention relates to rappelling apparatus and more particularly to a mounting anchor apparatus for securing the upper end of a rappel line to a fixed, elevated support, including walls and other generally planar support surfaces, for facilitated, emergency rappelling evacuation of a personnel from an elevated location.
The present invention provides a rappel line anchor apparatus for providing a quick and secure emergency mount for a rappelling line when urgency or other dangerous conditions require the most expedient escape by rappelling. As an example, if a firefighter or other rescue personnel is trapped on an upper floor of a building with a fire blocking stairway exit and about to break through to the floor occupied by the personnel, immediate rappelling exit from the building is oftentimes the only escape possible, and it is a matter of life and death action. Similarly, in an example of a military situation, if a soldier were trapped on an upper floor with enemy soldiers advancing on him from floors below, a rappelling escape from the building may be his only realistic hope of surviving the situation.
In any such situation as these, among many other different situations as may be imagined, there may not be any fixed structure or fixture available in the area to which the evacuee can safely loop, tie or otherwise attach his rappel line. Indeed, it is likely that a room may only have a window frame on an exterior wall or even a jagged hole through the exterior wall left by previous artillery shelling, etc. This emergency evacuation rappel line anchor apparatus is directed to such circumstances among many other similar mounting situations as may be encountered by persons requiring emergency rappelling exit from elevated locations.
Emergency rappelling systems have been provided in order to address the needs of firefighters, military and other emergency personnel in emergency rappelling situations involving buildings and other structures. One such system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,714,135 to Bell, et al. wherein a compact, rapidly-deployable rappel line having a carabeener secured at its upper end is provided in a carrier pouch connected to a harness arrangement worn by a military, fire or other rescue personnel working at elevated positions. This reference teaches the need and benefit of providing such personnel involved in potential rappelling situations with a rappelling arrangement that provides for quickest deployment for rapid, rappelling evacuation.
Aside from this teaching, this reference also illustrates the state of the prior art and the limitations and disadvantages that have been left unresolved with regard to the securement of the upper end of a rappel line to fixed supports available in a building or other elevated structure. In this, Bell, et al. neither provides nor suggests any rappel line anchor mount apparatus for securing the upper end of the rappel line except simply to loop the upper terminal end portion of the rappel line itself about a fixed support structure such as a vent stack on the roof of a building, as shown in FIG. 9 of the patent. This arrangement for securing the upper end of the rappel line is suitable only when there is a suitable fixture available in the area to which the rappel line can be looped around and secured or tied to. On roofs of buildings, such structures typically are vent and chimney stacks, hand and safety railings and other such fixed structures. Inside buildings however, few rigidly fixed, structurally sound fixtures to which a rappel line can be tied or looped about are likely to be readily available near the area of rappelling evacuation such as at a window or hole in an exterior wall of the building. Thus, it is readily apparent that even the possibility of evacuation by the rappel rescue system of the prior art is dependent entirely upon the availability of some form of securely mounted fixture on or within the building to which the upper end of the rappel line of the system may be securely looped about or tied to. Absent such fixture, the rescue system of Bell, et al. is rendered substantially entirely useless.